Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:26 pm Post subject: FAQ on the home page
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this, but:
I think the first few sections in the NeoOffice FAQ convey a negative message that would discourage new users from trying the program.
I understand the need to state each of these points, but I think you could do a much better job of wording them, in a way that would encourage a newbie to try the program and its capabilities.
Would you permit me to suggest a rewrite? To whom should I send it?
Quote:
What is NeoOffice?
NeoOffice is a reasonably stable version of the OpenOffice.org office suite that has been engineered to run natively on Mac OS X.
Who should use NeoOffice?
NeoOffice is not perfect. Although we try very hard to make NeoOffice free of bugs and crashes, our users still find new bugs and new cases that cause NeoOffice to crash. So, if you feel that you need software that has been heavily tested, we recommend that you use a commercially-supported product like Microsoft Office or Apple iWork.
What can NeoOffice do?
NeoOffice can open, edit, print, and save all OpenOffice.org and most Microsoft Office documents.
I am having problems installing or running NeoOffice. Where can I go for support?
If you have questions, your best bet is to browse around the NeoWiki and the Trinity Forums.
NeoOffice is an open source development project staffed entirely by volunteers. What this means is that there is no formal user support. Instead, we have the NeoWiki and Trinity Forums so that users can post questions or search for answers. Please note that these sites are run by users just like you so please be patient. If you do not get an immediate response to your question, it probably means that either no one knows the answer to your question or there are not many other users online. So please be patient and, if you have time, help other users by posting answers to any questions that you know the answer to.
Will NeoOffice be updated in the future?
Since this project is staffed entirely by volunteers and is funded entirely by donations, future updates will only happen if there are enough volunteers who donate their spare time and enough users who donate funds.
If you would like to volunteer time or donate funds to NeoOffice, please read our Donations page.
I found a bug in NeoOffice. Will it ever be fixed?
_________________ Wheat Williams
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:47 pm Post subject: Re: FAQ on the home page
wheat wrote:
I think the first few sections in the NeoOffice FAQ convey a negative message that would discourage new users from trying the program.
I understand the need to state each of these points, but I think you could do a much better job of wording them, in a way that would encourage a newbie to try the program and its capabilities.
Expanding the user base really is not our primary goal and is the primary reason that we have publicly noted our limitations and shortcomings.
That approach has apparently been very successful over the last 5 years as our main operational issue over most of that time has been handling our every increasing user base. Given that we are entirely supported by donations and only 2 people to do all user support, we are constantly adjusting ourselves to stretch our resources to handle to continual volume of downloads and user support requests.
The problem has been that donations have always grown more slowly than our user base so putting clear warnings all over our site is necessary as it helps set reasonable expectations of what NeoOffice can and cannot do.
I forgot to add that the existing size of our user base also had the side effect of making our NeoOffice Early Access Program what it is today.
Since NeoOffice has such a big ratio of users compared to developers and support volunteers, we found early on that our user support suffered in both speed and quality by a significant amount when we did not use the Early Access Program to introduce versions of NeoOffice that contain an updrade of the OpenOffice.org version that we use.
By limiting distribution to only the few thousand users in the Early Access Program, we can avoid getting completely overwhelmed by the support requests of hundreds of thousands of users if a significant bug is found. With the much smaller number of Early Access Program members allows us to handle any significant bugs immediately, push a fix, and handle any direct queries about the issue.
Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:28 am Post subject: Re: FAQ on the home page
pluby wrote:
Given that we are entirely supported by donations and only 2 people to do all user support, we are constantly adjusting ourselves to stretch our resources to handle to continual volume of downloads and user support requests.
That is not entirely true. There are some very hard-working volunteers who do no coding but spend and have spent time on a user guide, a wiki and answering questions on this forum..
Best wishes and happy new year,
Oscar _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:53 am Post subject: Re: FAQ on the home page
ovvldc wrote:
pluby wrote:
Given that we are entirely supported by donations and only 2 people to do all user support, we are constantly adjusting ourselves to stretch our resources to handle to continual volume of downloads and user support requests.
That is not entirely true. There are some very hard-working volunteers who do no coding but spend and have spent time on a user guide, a wiki and answering questions on this forum..
Good point. What I failed to say was 2 fulltime people. I was not trying to discount the volunteers in any way. In fact, without the huge amount of help that our volunteers have given, I am pretty sure that the quality of support and documentation for NeoOffice would be far lower than what it is today.
The point I was trying to make is that even with our volunteers and fulltime, donation-supported people, our user base is huge in comparison to the number of people doing all of the support. When you have 500,000 people downloading NeoOffice every month and you have no more than a dozen people doing support, I don't think that doubling the download number would make a pleasant experience for either our users or our supporters.
Yes, but the little I know of you that (the volunteers) was implied. It was also understood that you were addressing the primary technical development/support of Neo - you and Ed et. al. All is cool!
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